Failure Modes and Effects Analysis of Polycrystalline Photovoltaic Modules Exposed to the Composite Climate of India

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) are crucial in ensuring the photovoltaic (PV) module’s long life, especially beyond 20 years with minimum operating costs. The diverse environmental parameters significantly affect the life of the solar PV system, and the system may observe more than the expected number of failures if preventive maintenance is not carried out regularly. This paper presents a case study on FMEA of solar PV systems using field failure data collected from the different regions (composite climate) in India. The primary objectives of this work are to identify the critical failure modes based on the risk priority number (RPN) and risk assessment. This work provides general recommendations for the safe installation of PV systems and trouble-free operations. The results show that overloading, current leakage, grounding issues, and earthing wire issues are the most dominant failure modes.